# How I am simultaneously both: right, and probably, partly wrong…

[A few inline updates added, and some very minor copy-editing done at a few places, on 2014.12.28.]

In my research, I have found that I am simultaneously both right and, probably, partly wrong.

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First, the probably partly wrong part. I will assume as if I am actually (partly) wrong, and write it. (The probability that I am wrong is very high.)

The error concerns my theory for the mechanism of propagation of photons that I had put forth almost a decade ago, formally published in Dec. 2005. I had had that idea since 1991/1992. The more recent experimental evidence, I guess, shows it wrong.

First, on to the mistake, and then, to the experimental evidence. [Here, I will not bother explaining myself. Instead, I will assume that you are well familiar with my published papers, know about the field, and thus, go straight-away to the heart of the matter.]

Ok. About the mistake. Essentially, it is that the mechanism that I had proposed implied that photons in free space have a diffusive dynamics. My browsing of the experimental evidence indicates that they instead have a ballistic dynamics. The theory, as presented in the papers, therefore, fails.

The experimental evidence comes from the PDC entangled photon pairs—i.e., if I get the evidence right.

Consider two PDC entangled photons. They are found at the intersection of the two cones. Assume that in experiment, the cones can be intercepted by detectors lying in a plane normal to the central axis, at any arbitrary distance. Suppose that the detectors’ plane lies at distance $x_1$ from the crystal and that you detect the entangled pair “simultaneously” at a certain time $t_1$. The question is, if the detectors’ plane is placed at a distance $10 x_1$, what would be the detection time? If $10 t_1$, then it obviously means that the dynamics is ballistic.

I presume that this in fact is the case in the actual experimentation, even though I could not easily find any direct experimental data to verify the same. But there is another reason why the dynamics must be ballistic.

If the dynamics were to be diffusive, then the probability of the simultaneously generated photon pairs ending up on the intersection spots would be so small that no one would think of producing photon pairs this way.

In my theory, the dynamics is diffusive because the photons change their directions randomly. This circumstance is impossible to realize in free space, because photons wouldn’t collide. By Pauli’s principle, two electrons would, but not two photons. Photons being bosons can occupy the same region of space without noticing each other.

[Update on 2014.12.28: The mistake isn’t “elementary.” Take two identical billiard balls and let them undergo perfectly elastic collision. The outcome is, in a way, the same as if two balls were to pass through each other without noticing the other’s presence. Think a bit more about this example and the mathematical (or “statistical”) in-distinguishability. … And also realize, despite Pauli’s principle, the mainstream QM doesn’t have anything to say on the matter: they don’t localize the photon while it is in propagation, in the first place. So, it’s not as if the issue has already been clarified by the physicists in their text-books and that the engineer is being audacious. BTW, most of the physicists who at all replied my emails, including an “Objectivist” one, had advised me to first study physics well, presumably before writing papers.]

I myself detected the error; none else pointed out. Indeed, none else (say a student or a reviewer) even hinted at a possibility. Not a single physicist to whom I had on my own sent my paper, came up with this objection.

The only person(s) to raise any sort of objection here were, hold your breath, my thesis examiners! They had begun by asking me whether the simulation I performed was for electrons or photons. There had followed a string of questions on their part, and simple, examinee-like assertions (rather than logically most thoroughly sound answers) on my part. They had kept the matter in abeyance before moving on to the next set of questions.

Yes, IMO, they could have granted me a PhD.

The reason is, firstly, that I had worked very hard on it and therefore had ample other material to justify a PhD. (One of the examiners had noted the relatively unusually large volume of work submitted for the degree.) I had other work or observations or results concerning numerical modelling, Huygens-Fresnel principle, and diffusion equation, and some of it still looks very fresh and original to me even now (especially the last; more on it later, right in this post).

Secondly, even for wave-fields, the description I presented could still be used as an abstract model for simulation of other linear wave fields (and I had pointed out some of these applications right in my papers), though, now, not for photons in free space.

Thirdly, many of the non-mainstream assumptions which I explicitly made do not get invalidated by the current experimental evidence, and remain worth taking note of. These include identification of photon (i) as a spatially localized phenomenon or condition  (ii) in aether. To build a new theory is the whole point behind doing theoretical research. As a PhD student one must show that one has learnt if not mastered the art of working with fresh theoretical concepts in a logical, consistent, manner. I did show some ability in this regard, and this part of the work does not get much affected by a re-evaluation of the theory in the light of the fresh experimental evidence.

Fourthly, though now there remains little to my theory if it is taken as an integrated whole, the fact of the matter is, in the process of having worked hard to build a model that later on turns out to be erroneous, I learnt a lot even before the error could be detected. And, thus, presenting a better model would be far easier. Indeed to the experts I can already tell on the fly: For a universe consisting only of electrons as fermions and photons as bosons, a model whereby the fermion is the pollen-grain and the photons are the bumping particles can easily be built, after throwing in a set of rules to get the phases (including spin and chirality) right. [Update on 2014.12.28: And, of course, while writing this post itself, I did know that a clarification for the creation and annihilation operators would be necessary, too. I just forgot to mention it in the original post.] No, I am not going to rush building one immediately. I just wanted to point out how easy it becomes to build a new, consistent, theory. The required integrations are already there.

That’s why, even if I guess I will have to withdraw the theory, I call it as being only partly wrong.

[Update on 2014.12.28: I think I should still pursue obtaining precise experimental evidence, before formally withdrawing my theory.]

A few other notes:

I didn’t know about the PDC photons or their behavior when I built my theory. No researcher/reviewer pointed it out to me, perhaps because they didn’t make the connection themselves. Realize, in the absence of the knowledge of the ballistic dynamics of the PDC photons, mine is a perfectly sensible theory. The very words ballistic vs. diffusive is something I read for the first time while casually browsing the home page of the optics group at the Raman Research Institute last year or so. I still don’t know whether the terms technically apply the issue I outlined above, but still, presumably, I have made clear the error I made.

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Now, on to the part where I am fully right. This, of course, concerns the diffusion equation.

The experiment that any one could perform at home (the one I hinted at, in my last post) consists of this one:

Take a blotting paper and put a small drop of blue ink in the centre. Watch the boundary separating the blue and white portions grow. [Yes, I know I have mentioned this experiment in my blog posts before. But now there is a bit of a new angle, so read on anyway.]

The Fourier theory does not acknowledge the existence of this front. In Fourier theory, the blueness is spread over the entire paper right from the word go.

If possible, make a video of the front, and find out the speed of the propagation of the front.

By arguments rooted in the numerical analysis methods, as well as by Einstein’s stochastic approach, the theory predicts a uniform speed of propagation for the front. (In Einstein’s theory, it’s stochastically uniform.) In Fourier’s theory, the concept is inapplicable and hence, if it at all must be used, then it can be said that the front has an infinite speed. [Since the blotting paper experiment does not fulfil all the requirements of the diffusion equation, your experimentally observed front may not have a uniform outward speed. But, the experiment does fulfil the aspect of a support limited to a sub-domain vs. that over the full domain.] [Update on 2014.12.28: Drop me a line if you want to perform a more complicated experiment that should conform to the diffusion equation better, at home or at school/college lab, and I will give you a few ideas.]

Here is another funny thing. Suppose the initial concentration/temperature profile is in the form of the cosine curve in between $-\pi$ to $+\pi$, and that the domain also runs between the same limits. If you know Fourier’s theory, you know that essentially, we are simplifying the situation to the greatest extent by taking just a single basis function in the Fourier expansion (i.e., apart from the bias, which, for diffusion of mass, would have to be taken as $-1$ here).

Suppose further that the boundary conditions are maintained to be zero field variable (concentration/temperature) at both the endpoints.

Since the profile covers the entirety of the domain, the solution at every point, throughout the diffusion, would consist of only a cosine curve; it’s just that its height would go on dropping with exponential decay, as the diffusing species goes out of the domain.

Now, do a funny thing. Keep the initial profile as in the above example, but let the domain run from $-10 \pi$ to $+10 \pi$.  The boundary conditions continue to remain the same: zero field variable.

If your intuition is like mine, we would expect the solution in the two cases to remain the same. But, in Fourier’s theory, they are not.

Since the domain size has increased, there is a portion $9 \pi$ long on each side of the initial profile that must be brought into the initial Fourier expansion. This introduces an infinity of basis functions into the initial profile. Naturally, the profile at any future time also is different from the first case.

[Update on 2014.12.28: I had also thought of mentioning the fact that the Fourier solution would be still different for a domain of total size $\pm 2 \pi$, but forgot to write about it in the original post.]

To a mathematician (and to any modern theoretical physicist—the same ones who can’t detect a mistake in my QM papers), the existence of different solutions for the same set of initial and boundary conditions, makes perfect sense. At least they don’t seem to notice anything amiss here. But what their position implies is the following, for your experiment at home.

If you take a bigger blotting paper, the shape of the solution should be different.

In other words, in Fourier theory, the solution crucially depends on the domain size, too—not just on the local dynamics of the diffusing species.

The experiment which I was going to request, would have made use of this domain-size dependence, for photons propagation. But then, as I said, I caught my own error, and so, I am not going to request performance of that kind of an experiment.

But what about the intuition, you say?

Well, if you take a local theory—Einstein’s stochastic, or those having roots in the numerical methods (and I need to give a name to these, just for convenience in reference)—the solution profile remains identical regardless of the domain size.

[Update on 2014.12.28: Indeed, you could even cut a significant portion of the paper near one of its edges after the diffusion has already begun, so long as the blue front has not reached that place, and it would still not affect the solution. I forgot to mention this point while writing the original version of this post.]

Getting more technical once again: There also is an implication for the instantaneous flux rate and the total outward flux, for the two theories. The local theories predict a zero flux until the front reaches the boundary. But since the diffusing species is conserved (conservation of mass or heat power, etc.), what it implies is that the local theories must give a faster flux rate at the times after the front reaches the boundary.

Keeping the conservation angle aside, the zero-flux state is something that should be easily verifiable in experiment. If it is experimentally verified, then, the local-physics theories win; else, the Fourier theory does.

I bet that the local theories would win. There is no blueness near the edges until the front travels there.

And, as far as I can tell, even if not photons, at least electrons do obey the diffusive dynamics in the free space. If careful experimentation is conducted, I predict (even ahead of building my new quantum theory) that there should be an experimentally verifiable zero-flux period, in contradiction to the mainstream quantum mechanics. And if it is observed, then it means that many mainstream ideas—or their mystifying components, at least—are completely wrong.

For this very reason, I don’t expect them to conduct the necessary experimentation with electrons. Or, try to think of any novel experimentation scheme with PDC photons.

In the meanwhile, I will build my new theory. However, now with another difference. The last time, I was content identifying the photon as a local condition, without specifying anything regarding its structure or the local dynamics. That was because, as a PhD student in engineering, I couldn’t afford to be too speculative. Now, however, I can afford to be a bit more relaxed, and begin considering toy ideas for more detailed models for the quanta. Inasmuch as photons are massless and there is aether, the situation is ripe for me to toy with some fluids-based ideas or models. Since I anyway do CFD, no one in engineering would even notice what I was doing was toying with some QM-related ideas. … Nice, no?

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Anyway, best wishes for a merry Christmas, and a very happy and prosperous new year. … No, I don’t think I will be writing any post in the remaining parts of this year. So, there. Wish you a very happy and prosperous new year, too…

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A Song I Like:

(Hindi) “jalate hain jis ke liye…”
Singer: Talat Mahmood
Music: S. D. Burman
Lyrics: Majrooh Sultanpuri

[As usual, I may come back and do some minor copy-editing and additions, though the main matter will remain as is. [Update on 2014.12.28: Done. I won’t bother any more with this post. If anything more is to be added, I will simply write a fresh post.]]

[E&OE]

# An Important Comment I Just Made at iMechanica—And, (Much) More!

0. The title says it all!

Go, check out this comment I just made at iMechanica: [^].

1. Now, on to the “more” part of the title. Noted below are a few more things about my research.

2. My Researches on QM:

2.1 Since the publication of my QM-related results, I have moved on considerably further. As mentioned earlier on this blog, I have since then realized that my approach—the way I thought about it, as in contrast to what I (happened to have) published—always could handle the vector field equations of electromagnetism, including those for light. That is, including the angular momentum part of the EM fields. (Paddy, Suku, are you listening?) … However, I decided against publishing something in more detail to cover this aspect. A good decision, now it seems in retrospect.

(Yes, Jayant, you may now try your best to prod me towards publishing, including emphasizing how unpublished research is non-existent research. Just try it! Any which way you wish. … Precisely just the way I don’t give a damn to wannabe physicists turning JPBTIs turning entrepreneurs, I also don’t give a damn to the Statism-entrenching advices coming off the Statism-entrenching scientists, esp so if they also are the State-revered ones. So, just try it!! Also others, like, say, Sunil!!!)

2.2 I had also resolved the entanglement issue, and have chosen not to publish about it. As I stated earlier here [^], Louisa Guilder reports that Bell’s inequality paper has garnered the highest number of citations in physics literature so far, an astounding 2,500. The paper # 2,501 (or greater, as of today) must have concluded that the entanglement issue cannot be resolved—possibly out of the position/conviction that there was nothing to be resolved.

So, basically, I have resolved what an enormous number of misguided (and, possibly outright stupid) people could cite but not resolve.

Aside: Of the hundreds of papers on this topic I have come across, I know of Dr. Joy Christian’s position to be most reasonable—and in my knowledge, only his. Now, there are some minor differences between what he says and what I have always known and never published. But these differences are, in a sense, minor. The important part—and aren’t we concerned only with the important things here?—is that I knew about it, and have deliberately chosen not to publish about it. (If holding this position makes it possible to tick me off via certain lists such those maintained by a John Baez or a Scott Aaronson, I couldn’t care less about it—and both (and all) of them, I suppose, should know/could get to know, how (I care so less about those lists).)

BTW, as a matter of progression in time, I had thought that the issue would have to be first resolved in the context of photons, not of electrons. I am not very sure about it, though. In any case, that was the sequence in which I did it. First, photons; then, electrons.

Go, try your best to prod me towards publishing something on it! Just try it!! … BTW, my resolution had happened years before I had publicly offered an Indian PhD physicist on a “LinkedIn” group that I could explain my results if she (or anyone else) could meet me in person at Pune. This public offer of mine has just ended, right now!…. So, go ahead! Just try it!!!

3. My Researches on Other Topics

3.1 I have had some definite ideas for research on other topics from computational science and engineering and allied fields (including a numerics). I have kept these aside for the time being, because many of these are well-suited for guiding PhDs. Which brings me to the last couple of points for today (or at least, as of now, in the first version of this post).

3.2 As to student projects, I have decided not to accept anyone unless he is remarkably bright, and hard-working. (For those who seek to do truly independent PhD research, I cannot make myself available as a guide, as of now. Also see the point 3.3 below.) Roughly speaking, this means that rough level as would be understood by one or more of the following: GRE (V+Q) scores of at least 1350; GATE score of 95+P; throughout distinction class (or in at least 5 semesters out of 8) in BE of University of Pune (or equivalent).

3.3 The University of Pune has a stupid requirement for becoming a PhD guide: you (i.e. a fresh PhD graduate) must wait for at least 3 years after his own (successful) defense before he can become a PhD guide himself. The three years, in my case, end on September 20, 2012. (They—the Indian government(s)—probably arranged the date to numerically coincide with the date on which I first entered USA: 2nd September, 1990. Yes, the same government that whispered the UK government to give Rahul Gandhi’s brother-in-law all security clearance at UK airports, on par with the President and Prime Minister of India.)

Recently, someone reminded me a further requirement that I had forgotten. You also need to have two publications in those three years, before you can become a guide. Since I have mentioned the Gandhi’s and the defence-date here, I am sure that they would now interpret the sufficiently vague rules to imply that those two must be journal articles—peer-reviewed conference proceedings won’t do.

I, therefore, have decided to try to publish two journal articles in the near future of a few months. (Hey Elsevier, take notice!)

At least one, and probably both of these two articles would be on CFD.

Those of you who know me, would know that once I get going, I get going. I don’t disappoint (these of) you, not this time around at least: I have already installed Ubuntu 11.10 (natty) inside Oracle’s VirtualBox running on top of Windows (32 bit XP and 64-bit 7), and have already installed OpenFOAM v. 2.0.1 in that Ubuntu (32-bit, as of now). I also have installed other software. I have shortlisted the niche problems I could work on. I have contacted a couple of IIT Bombay professors, not for collaboration, but merely for sounding out. I knew that being employed by the IIT Bombay, there would be no collaboration, though a collaboration could have been perfectly OK by me. I also knew that once I wrote an email to them, it would get trapped (as all my emails are), and then, even the sounding things out over a 30 minute session would soon become impossible. And, that the impossibility would never be communicated explicitly via any means, esp. via an email. This  supposition of mine has indeed come to pass. (Congratulate me for being a good judge of the IIT Bombay, of the Indian government(s)—all of them, today’s and those of the past under the BJP regime as well, of Indians, and of humanity in general.) I knew all that, right in advance, and had prepared myself mentally for it. And, thought of plans B and C as well. I am executing on these.

And, no, I couldn’t care a hoot for how many freaking citations those two journal papers generate. As far as I am concerned, these two papers would allow me to fulfill the stupid requirements whereby I can become a PhD guide. And whereby, a slim chance does exist that I might get some good guy (gals included) for PhD supervision. (Chances are, it could be someone I already knew as a friend—numerically speaking, most of my friends are without PhDs.)

So, there. For the next few months, that’s the sort of research I am going to do—in my spare time, of course. Hey Elsevier, take notice (once again!!). As to others: If you consider yourself my friend, help me publish it in an easy and timely manner, ASAP.

That’s all for today. For this first version, anyway. As always, I might come back and correct or add a few things. …. Might as well add a few political comments right here.

4. A Few Comments on Politics and All:

Just noting down a few comments on politics (i.e. that politics which is “larger” than the one in S&T fields) in passing (and I will take liberties to pass comments on people without alerting them):

To ObjectivistMantra and Others:

I think I will stop here, and add possibly add other points via other blog posts. For the time being, as far as politics goes, I am enjoying (“loving it”) watching the BJP more than anyone else in the opposition/government, as far as the issue of retail FDI goes.  However, I am not going to support Walmart for the simple reasons that (i) their country has unreasonably failed me in the PhD and unreasonably denied me green-card/citizenship, (ii) they are too big to need my support anyway, and (iii) supporting a big company against government—Microsoft, in the DoJ case—was one among many things that got me a heart condition, I know. (How do I know? Well, it’s the same guy who has known how to resolve the QM wave-particle duality in the context of light, and about angular momentum in EM, and then, a resolution of the riddles of quantum entanglement, as well as many other unpublished, even un-discussed topics.)

One final point, again going back towards research. For the past several years I could not fathom the reason why people might be so unenthusiastic about my approach—I mean, honest people (apart from all the dirty things and “political” issues I have mentioned/indicated above.) Well, it was while reading Sean Carroll’s blog at Discovery magazine that I happened to realize one important (technical) reason why this might be (or must be) so! Hmmm…. Nice to know. It’s always great to know. Though, I am not going to divulge here what that thing was—or how it not only doesn’t contradict my approach but rather helps me be even more confident about my approach (if I ever needed such help, in this context!) And, as you know, I am not going to discuss it or publish about it either. Try to get me to do otherwise. … Just try!
Ok. Enough is enough. As usual, to be edited/streamlined later—perhaps!

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A Song I Like:
[RIP, Dev Anand!]
(Hindi) “gaataa rahe, meraa dil…”
Music: S. D. Burman (perhaps with R.D. looking after the orchestra (??) if not also the tune. (I have read somewhere that he was involved in “Aaraadhanaa,” but have no such idea when it comes to “Guide”)
Singers: Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar
Lyrics: Shailendra

[E&OE]

# Playing the Second Fiddle to “Accomplishments Based on Short Term Reputations”

0. This post puts together a series of tweets I wrote last week or so. This post was meant to be uncharacteristically short because I am once again down with cough (together with 1/4th if not 1/2 of Pune). Those anti-histamines tend to make you both hazy and lazy. But then, as I began typing, it exceeded 3000 words! You are warned.

1. The whole thing began with charges of plagiarism by Prof. Ashok Kumar, a faculty with the department of biological sciences and bioengineering, at IIT Kanpur. Look up the ‘net for more information. The charges seem serious because Elsevier also issued a retraction notice, for lifting materal from, of all sources, Wikipaedia!! According to the “Nanopolitan” blog maintained by Prof. Abinandanan of IISc Bangalore, this was the first time that an IIT faculty was being implicated for plagiarism charges.

The blogosphere immediately went abuzz with expressions of shock, disgust, anger, “WTF” etc. Understandably so.

What I failed to understand was the reason why was the community would get so agitated. … Don’t get me wrong. My reasons to failing to understand them have nothing to do with supporting plagiarism but instead wanting to put the issue in context.

Plagiarism is detestable, I thought, but having observed the research and academic community’s reactions (or rather, the absence of such a thing as any reaction at all) over other similar issues for more than past two decades, I began to wonder why this obsession with plagiarism itself.

I mean, when it comes to the lack of integrity, in particular, the scientific integrity, there are umpteen other ways absolutely to go wrong too. And, to my dismay, I have found that many of those who are most (or most influentially) vocal against plagiarism, or their very near colleagues have been caught, by none other than me, say with their pants down. (I can cite at least two Padma awardees in this list.)

And then, what really bugged me down was Prof. Abinandanan’s not-so-recent and still continuing tirade against Dr. R. A. Mashelkar, FRS, one of persons of (recent) Indian science that I happen to admire most.

In Abi’s case, there seemed to be something going beyond mere personal grouches. After all, I recall that in the year 2003 I had applied to his department for a PhD admission, with two conditions: I will supply my own research topic, and I will not disclose all the information in publications, in view of any possible internatioal patents.

His department (Abi was with them back then too, and so feel free to take the absence of his comments to this post as merely affirmation of the remaining parts of this sentence) was at best most mildly lukewarm to the first idea (namely that I will work on my project idea) and at best mildly antogonistic to the second (with “If patents and all is what you want to do, doing PhD here will be impossible” being an average reply).

Notice also that by that time (2003), in India, not only IIT Bombay and IIT Kharagpur, but also the University of Pune had already put in place an Intellectual Property Rights policy. The UoP part is in part surprising because the rest of the IITs—and Abi’s IISc—had not done so. It is not so surprising when you realize that Dr. Mashelkar was actively promoting IPRs both within CSIR and outside of it, and with NCL PhDs being attached with UoP, had considerable influence at UoP.

Juxtapose these two sets of facts, and you begin to get a sense of what I am driving at: namely, that there seems to be more than a mere personal grouch when Abi, or any other IISc, JNU, Calicut/Kochi etc. professor (or, for the sake of completeness, say a minion of Jairam Ramesh BTech IIT Bombay’s), begins to attack people like Mashelkar.

A bit personal about why I add Ramesh here. When I was being “followed up” in Indu Jain’s Times of India during those shining BJP years, two names, I noticed, stood out in actively participating in those follow-ups. One: Dr. Vasant Gowariker (I guess an uncle of Ashutosh Gowariker’s). Two: an “intelligent” and “good-looking” politician (by his own admission) and an (I am sure permanently) aspiring eco-terrorist, Jairam Ramesh. Contrast: One prominent personality who did not fall to their low standards despite himself writing frequently for Times of India in those days (but who also didn’t help me in any real sense, beyond library help) was: Prof. Jayant Narlikar.

Let me put it bluntly. The matter begins to smell of a dead rat (or rotten fish, if you are a Bengali), when a person, or group, or network of them is consistently vocal against plagiarism, but equally consistently shy of commenting on any other violations of scientific integrity—no matter how blatant—and then also manages to summon the muscle power to rant against people of the character and stature of Mashelkar’s.

Yet, I don’t think the rants against Mashelkar are worth taking a serious note of. Furthermore, I would rather let Dr. Mashelkar speak for himself—if he thinks there is a need to do so. Here, on my blog I would rather focus on the sufferings and setbacks that I myself have had to face and endure (and have to continue doing so) because of an academic-research-scientific establishment of low scientific integrity. Most notably, including IIT Bombay and IISc Bangalore.

3. Plagiarism is one way to lost integrity. But, is it the only one? Can you think of any other?

While writing tweets, rather on the fly, I could think of the following. Please see if you can add to these:

• Denying admission to a PhD program if a candidate, otherwise fully qualified and shortlisted and all, says that he has already formulated the main research topic for his PhD, and, for various contextual reasons, would be interested in pursuing only that topic. (He is willing to name specific topics for at least three anticipated research papers, but the committee discussion is either steered or, worse, “evolves” in such a way that he cannot get to that part at all, but instead is laughed at.)
• Studied ignorance of even dramatic claims (such as first in 200 years). Need I comment more?
• Declining to examine a PhD thesis even if there are 5+ peer-reviewed internatioal conference papers as a support material.
• Declining to examine a PhD thesis even if the candidate claims that it involves only such mathematics as can be understood by an undergraduate of engineering, on the grounds that “I don’t understand it,” and “it is not my specialization,” or, this gem: “I will have to learn new things before I undestand it, for which, I have no time.” (More than one person said it, and not all had been graduated by the University of California at Berkeley.)
• concerning the singularity at the envelope of a vortex ring, sent to a guy who has an American PhD in CFD, is a faculty at an IIT, and yaps a lot on the ‘net (including against Ayn Rand)
• concerning voxel-based processing, sent to an Indian gal, who has an American PhD in graphics, is a faculty in an American university
• concerning quantum mechanical wave particle duality (sent to many)
• Improper rejection of paper: Did the CERN people really reject my paper for considerations of a perceived lack of merit? What do you think? Or was it because I explicitly cited Ayn Rand, taking the care to cite a least controversialpiece—to the effect that we should not reject alternative hypotheses or theories without due consideration. Can anything get more mainstream in science? And, if not, quoting Professor T. A. Abinandanan, let me ask: “WTF were you folks thinking?” (Disclosure: Prof. Abinandanan is not related to me by way of affiliation, employer, discipline—or philosophic convictions.)
• Not answering queries posted at collegial blogging fora such as iMechanica. Studied silence, in short.
• Grabbing prizes (up to Rs. 50 lakhs, no less) for work on “quantum gravity” but declaring, physically sitting across the table and to the face of an official PhD student, that one does not know the quantum wave-particle duality—not even sufficiently to the extent that a simple two-part paper claiming to resolve it, already published, can be read and commented upon. What more proof do you want the corruption of the scientificspirit (i.e. the lack of moral integrity for doing science and occupying positions in institutions funded by the tax-payer’s money) is rampant. (In Indian media, they often use the term “rampant” in such a way that without consulting a dictionary, one might conclude that it means “wide-spread.” The actual meaning is: standing upright—but on the hind-legs. The term applies to animals, as they assume an attacking posture. That’s what rampant means. Not afraid of assuming a towering posture so as to win a fight, but in the context of animals other than Man. (Yes, Indian media, go ahead, take your revenge—use this word from now onwards for certain politicians like Mr. Sharad Pawar.) )
• Raising non-relevant issues: For example. You talk of potential flow as the simplified case, relevant only as the first step towards the Helmholtzian fields (the linear second-order PDEs). The person (a researcher, not an industrial engineer) goes: So, have use used fluent for modeling multi-phase flows? Don’t laugh. It would be a matter of incompetence if done honestly. It is a matter of shamelssly dropping integrity because it can be, and is routinely done deliberately. Here is another example of the same kind: You arrange to tell an Emeritus Professor of Physics that after 1.5 years, finally, two people have agreed to examine the PhD thesis, but the topic is such that if the third examiner is a physicist, it would be great. The guy (with a US PhD and IIT teaching experience—with one of his female students heading a group at IISc) goes: “The problem seems to be well defined. He might have done some work. (Huh!) But, since I am not a computational physicist, I cannot examine this.” What kind of integrity-keeping is that, Professor Sharad Patil—especially if you know that the guy has been made to run from the post to the pillar even after paper publications and for 1.5 years after thesis submission? What kind of integrity-keeping is that, Huzurpaga-trained Professor Rohini Godbole? (This nullifies the media significance of quoting Sharad Pawar above. Recently, the local dailies like the daily Sakal—which, unlike at least three other Marathi newspapers including Lokmat, didn’t publish the news of my PhD, what with a Dalit-Bramhim combo editing the show—had published pix showing Mr. Pawar attending a function at Huzurpaga, and similar ones for IIT Bombay etc. But yes, keep aside the media significance, but one would still want to raise that question, pertaining specifically to the virtue of integrity. )
• Releaseing enticing advertisements for post-doc positions (or industy employment), only to not even acknowledgment the receipt of the application. Of course I do mean the IIT Bombay alumnus and UC Davis Professor Sukumar. But he emphatically is not alone. The situation is so pathetic that, as far as iMechanica is concerned, I cannot be sure of any job advertisements coming anywhere from USA or Europe except for those from a very very few groups, notably, that of John Dolbow, a few from Technion—but none from Oxford, Cambridge, or much of the rest of Europe. (I also include here my observations of the “evolution” of paper submission at arXiv, over the past 5+ years.) Games playing is at an all time high. And, I, personally, have maintained enough integrity to say that their integrity is at an all time low.

I could go on. But it already has exceeded 2,500 words.

Therefore, I have no stamina left for what, I hoped in the beginning, would be the last 1/4 or 1/3 part of this post. Namely, the standards employed for awarding tenure at MIT, and the Indian scientist’s intense desire (as judged from their actions at the time of PhD admissions) to determinedly play only a Second Fiddle to the likes of the MIT.

I may come back and try to finish this part sometime later. No guaruntees, because one of my conference papers has been accepted and I have to finish writing software for it as well as the paper itself, by this month-end. As such, I will have no time to blog for the rest of the month. At least, I should avoid doing so unless the software and the paper is complete. I will try to avoid the temptation, but, sure, leave me alone for a while. (I have observed that I begin to get psychic tensions, if not attacks, if there is a longer gap between blog-posts and even tweets. These California/American pscychics—and possibly their “friends” and co-forces elsewhere) aren’t going to stop. But, yes, there is almost a computer-game like precision to what they do. There is a psychic tension if (i) I don’t post, or (ii) other people (preferably those from USA) don’t write back me emails, (iii) other people don’t release posts or articles even if 2-3 degrees (out of the famous six degrees of separation) favoring one of my recent positions, and (iv) any or all of the above. Given the precision, I feel sure that the US government’s psi-forces must be responsible for so attacking me. If not that, then, Christianity. Such a precision—and regularity across a span of a decade-plus of time— would be possible only to those bustards and bitches who are protected by a fifty-year discolure deadline, or the hierachy-upon-hierarchy and country-after-county network believing in psi-forces. (The communists among the bustards and bitches are networked—but outside of their ruling governments, they don’t believe in the existence of the psi-forces. And, going by my experience—the timing and all—the matter concerns the mystics of the soul. Might as well add. I did suspect (and still do look out for the possibility of) the BJP being in this. But, frankly, once they were out of the power at the center, I don’t think I have received any attacks from them. (Unlike what many people imagine, the attacks are not random. They have a sharp purpose of wanting to influence opinions, policy, etc. That is the reason why one can make out who could possibly be behind the attacks at any given moment—via a process which, I think, could be said to the method of systematic elimination.))

So, leave me alone. (Or, make up by writing me emails/comments, more uniformly distributed, over the next two weeks.) I have a paper to finish, and, not just a paper, but also a piece of software—all by myself, without having a couple of IISc/IIT Bombay graduate students, and far more importantly, their library facilities, at my disposal. The MIT tenure policy is an interesting matter (LOL!—at them), but it can wait.

* * * * *   * * * * *    * * * * *

A Song I Like
(Hindi) “gayaa andheraa, hua ujaalaa, chamka chamka subah kaa taaraa…”
Singers: Talat Mahmood and Lata Mangeshkar
Music: C. Ramachandra
Lyrics: Noor Lucknowi

[Corrected the song credits; thanks gaddeswarup. However, this post still is to be updated, edited and streamlined after a week or so, in any case, not in the very immediate future.]

[E&OE]

# A Bit of Tracing Back Regarding My New Approach

Here, let me trace a bit of the development concerning my work with photons.

There are two reasons why I used only the scalar wave equation during my PhD research.

The first reason is that, initially, i.e. when the PhD began, I simply didn’t know any better!

Indeed, it was a bit of discovery for me as I figured out, while right in the middle of feverishly simulating and writing for my two QM papers in 2005, that there ought to be gyroscopic aspects to the photon. I mean, I simply saw this thing come out of the new approach that I was playing with (i.e. developing its details). Since no elementary text on QM (also optics and modern physics) mentioned anything like this (at least not the books I consulted), I decided to defer writing about it. And, then, there also was this space limitation (8 pages) for the ISTAM papers anyway—indeed, I was concerned more with having to cut down on the matter than growing it. But yes, this thing only confirms that I really didn’t know any better!

At that time, I tried  to give a mechanical model for it (in my mind, i.e. in unpublished research). Then I realized that if I began using the mechanical terms right at this early stage, people might think that I was still in the Newtonian mechanical realm and that I had not grasped the quintessential quantum nature. So, I kept it aside.

The second reason is that I was in a pressure of sorts to keep my research limited to engineering sciences, particularly, to the specialty that is mechanical engineering.

There was no pressure from my PhD guide. However, whenever I spoke about my research with engineering researchers, I could sense them saying (mostly indirectly) that this matter could eventually prove troublesome to me at the time of writing of thesis and its defense. In India, people are especially concerned with maintaining divisions (religion, caste, language, urban-vs-rural, political parties, … branches of science, engineering…). So, there was a real danger of (once again) losing the PhD degree.

So, I deferred much development related to QM to a time until after the defense.

The trouble was that the defense took 2 years, and when it finally did occur, I already was new in my day-job that had nothing to do with QM, and had some commitments there. … It’s only now that I am able to revisit QM, including my own ideas of QM.

BTW, let me also confirm that advice to start writing papers as early as possible in your research. It does help.

You see, the first time I had this idea of geometrically sampling the Huygens’ wavelets was in 1992 (perhaps even in late 1991). I was working in Prof B.R. Patterson’s group in UAB, and he was all a stereology man. The Americans all share one thing. Every American thinks that whatever it is that he is doing, that is the greatest thing in the world. (Strictly personal: I remember thinking what the hell is all this building building thing, while reading The Fountainhead.) So, it was natural for Pat (I never called him by that name in person, though) to encourage thinking in terms of geometric probability. While Pat was all about applying it to the diffusion-related phenomena and in materials, I thought of extending it to the wave phenomena and to light. However, I was in trouble back then, and soon, was failed in the qualifiers. So, I decided not to tell the idea itself to anyone.I told my room-mate Parag Bhargava (now Full Professor at IIT Bombay) that I had a great idea. But not what precisely it was.

The first time I divulged this idea to anyone was in late 1995/early 1996, to my two (really) disinterested engineer friends. At that time, while explaining the matter to them (without giving them any hint that it can resolve the QM wave-particle duality—and I knew they were of the types who couldn’t have got this implication, and so I was safe), I had mistakenly told them that the Feynman himself had clubbed the potential, diffusion and wave equations together, with a Laplacian on the one hand and the differentials of time on the other.  I continued to carry this mistaken belief for many years, right from early 1990s, for a total period of about a decade!

The first time that I developed full confidence that the randomly sampled Huygens process does actually resolve the quantum wave-particle duality was in late 1999, possibly in November 1999. Before this time (i.e. from UAB times onwards) I was not so sure. I mean, I knew that I had a clue, but I used to think that it would take much more of a further abstract development on top of it. I couldn’t have been sure about the “completeness” aspect of it—the point that this is all there is to the solution (as far as photons go). That is the confidence I got first time only in late 1999.

I had come across, for the first time in my life, Feynman’s tiny QED book for the layman in Barnes and Noble’s in Redwood City, CA, in July 1999. After flipping through a few pages, I bought it. (It’s really strange that I had entirely missed the existence of this book during my UAB days.) But I didn’t immediately begin reading it.

I picked it up for reading once I was in Santa Rosa, CA, in the winter of 1999. The moment that I read through the first one or two chapters, I knew that my suspicion, carried right from my UAB days, and divulged to my friends in Pune in 1995/6, was true. I don’t recall the date any more, but do remember that the “aha” moment had come within the three-four days before the day when I wrote a very special—rather, weird—comment to the Ayn Rand Institute, consisting entirely of this: “tee dee dee dee dee dee …” (Yes, the implicit reference was to Beatles’ “With love from me to you.”) I wanted to communicate my joy to someone—without telling what it was about…  At that time, I was being very heavily “followed up,” with on an average two psychic attacks per day, even as the Brahmin girls at the matrimonial sites (and my “Objectivist” enemies) enjoyed their days. Of course, some days did go without any. … Those were really the worst days of my life… I would think twice before wishing them on my enemies (including the Americans).

If there were no psychic attacks then, I could have begun writing a paper immediately. If so, I would have caught both my advances as well as the problems with my ideas early on.

One reason I didn’t write down anything was because I was not sure if someone wouldn’t break-in in my apartment in my absence, and steal data/ideas—I was alone in my apartment in Santa Rosa, and everyone knows how easy it is to hack computers. (For example, there is a hack right now concerning my Web site. If you type “JadhavResearch.info” into a Web browser, today, it takes you to a different page than to my Web site. No, I am not going to fight this issue. As far as I am concerned, it is between Tata Indicom, their contractors, and the hackers.)

But coming back to the main point here, even in 2002 and 3, while talking to IIT Bombay and other professors (when I was on the lookout for a PhD admission), I was still attributing the clubbing together of the three equations to Feynman. It was only in 2003 September that I realized that the idea of clubbing together the three equations was nowhere to be found in Feynman’s Lectures. It was something that I had done on my own.

And more. It was not until in September 2005, when I began writing the ISTAM “Resolution” papers that I had grasped some of the issues related to the change of phase of a photon and the gyroscopic aspects. It was in part for the reason mentioned above (namely, that I was trying to give a mechanical model for these aspects of the photon) that I decided to postpone discussing phases in those two papers. [Within six months, then, I was diagnosed with the cardiac trouble; the surgery and the recovery followed; and I somehow jotted down something towards phase calculations in my paperson unrelated topics—I think the phases of photons are discussed perhaps in the snowman paper.]

Had I begun writing my QM paper earlier (as against merely thinking about ideas only in the mind), it would have exposed not only my weak points but also the strong ones.

… That reminds me. Even today, even with just photons (and not electrons), I still have one more thread left to pursue and exhaust (at least critique). [Reminder to self: WRITE it down as soon as getting home!]

Also, one final point. Don’t let yourself think that I have finalized everything regarding my new approach. It’s very much a work in progress. Don’t confuse this post with the sort of reminiscences that retired physicists/Nobel laureates write. At the same time, don’t let yourself think that I have stated nothing permanent in my papers thus far. I have. For instance, the idea that IAD doesn’t exist, that the photon (or more generally, quantum) propagation is a local process, that a quantum description for monochromatic radiation (i.e. one without using group waves) can and should be the starting point, that there is a difference of transients in the dynamics of my approach and others, etc. … Think about it. It’s already quite a handful.

* * * * *   * * * * *   * * * * *

A Song I Like
[Guess this is the first time I mention an English song here.]
(English) “If there’s anything that you want…”
Singers, Lyrics, Music: Beatles

[E&OE]

# Wanted: Photon Counters…

Here, the word “counter” refers to people, not instruments. [Hope no one takes offense.]

I have been trying to get in touch with those experimental physicists who have performed the single-quantum double-slit interference experiment, using photons as the main QM particle. A single-quantum single-slit diffraction experiment would be perfectly fine, too.

I am interested in having detailed and fine-grained data generated in such experiments, in order to validate my computational modeling results.

My PhD research had put forth visual comparisons with the excellent experimental results obtained by Dr. Tonomura of Hitachi [^]. However, Tonomura’s team had used electrons as the main QM particle—not photons.

For some reason or the other, I could not locate the direct experimental data for photons at the time when I published on this topic during my PhD (around 2005). The main reason then was that e-Journals access was not available at COEP at that time.

… Anyway, I had mentioned that experimental results for photons would be essentially similar.

However, later on, some people expressed apprehensions about this part. … I could not dismiss such apprehensions right out of the hand, mainly because I knew that some noted physicists had expressed doubts as to whether Schrodinger’s equation would even apply to  the case of photons. If somebody brings up that kind of an objection, then one tends to get lost in the theoretical subtleties, and the main point—viz., the new theoretical and computational approach—gets sidetracked. Of course, much of such a diversion/distraction would vaporize if one could show a direct experimental result involving photons.

… All in all, I have been on the lookout for a direct experimental evidence involving photons.

Some time later on, I did run into a few simple experiments done with even visible light, notably the one performed by Prof. Lyman Page, Jr., at Princeton [^].

As the linked page clearly shows, the results for the single-photon version indeed are essentially similar to those from the single-electron version of Tonomura’s experiment.

Might as well mention here that also Afshar et al. had produced some indirect experimental data involving photons, and it was these data that I really wanted to exploit when I submitted my abstract to a recent CERN conference in India… But then, the stupid/idiotic/moronic/etc. CERN people turned my paper proposal down. See my earlier post in part covering this issue here [^].

Some time later, I once again decided to do something towards validation of my computational modeling results. So, a few days ago, I wrote an email to Prof. Page. … Going by my experience of physicists, I didn’t expect him to even bother to reply. But, to my pleasant surprise, he did. Promptly. But only to tell me that their experiment has now been “retired.” He also added that he would keep it in mind if they revive it in future, and this indeed is very nice of him.

Experimentally, it won’t take anything more than the above-described (very simple) setup. So, it’s not a very big deal that I am asking for. [But, I don’t have even that much money—else I would have gone ahead and conducted the experiment myself.] Indeed, people won’t have to alter any single aspect of their (already simple) experimental setup.

Still, I guess, they would perhaps have to conduct the experiment once more, simply because they might not have recorded the single-photons detection data the way I want it to be recorded—their experimental procedure might have resulted in a spatial and/or temporal coarsening for the single-photon detection events.

Anyway, details like that can be discussed off-line, but here is a request to you the reader. If you spot any experimentalists in this field, please do drop a line to me to inform me about them. Thanks in advance!

–  –  –  –  –
A Song I Like

(Hindi) The title track of the movie: Sholay
Music: R. D. Burman

[E&OE]

# Single-Point Agendas, Henceforth… + Invited Talks

0. Single-Point Agendas, Henceforth…

Recently, I happened to browse quite a few personal blogs. (Mostly, I was taking links off Churumuri and Nanopolitan and Atanu Dey’s blogs—including the blogs of the people posting comments at these blogs.) The two things I noticed were the following: (i) whereas most blogs carry categories and labels, my blog here doesn’t, and, (ii) when writing their own content (as in contrast to providing links), most blogs carry only one topic per post whereas I happen to throw all kinds of topics together in a single post.

As to the first (providing categories and labels to my posts here): It will take quite some time to go back and add categories and labels to all my previous posts. And unless I do that, any categories and labels that I add for the new posts will not give a “balanced” kind of picture of what all topics have been covered here thus far. But I don’t have as much time at hand right now… So, for the lack of time, I have no choice but to continue posting without categories and labels.

However, for the second part, I think I am going to have only single-topic posts henceforth… (I am not yet sure, hence the phrase “I think..”) … And, BTW, this note itself does not count as a topic in its own right.

1. Invited Talks

When it comes to higher education in India, Dr. Jayant Narlikar has been advocating involving working scientists in teaching university courses.

Separately, a lot of people have been commenting on the differences in the practices that are followed in higher education in India vs. those abroad, notably, in the US.

With the upcoming entry of foreign universities in India, all such matters are going to be under discussion for some time in the immediate future.

For the time being, I would like to make just a couple of observations here.

(1) Most US universities maintain, right on their official servers, elaborate personal Web pages/sites of not only their faculty members but also of their PhD students—sometimes, also their MS (and even their undergraduate) students.

In contrast, in India, outside of a few select institutions like IITs and IISc (and few others like TIFR, IMSc, JNCASR, IUCAA, etc.) not even university professors themselves maintain personal Web pages/sites. And here I mean the professors employed in the university departments—not those from the affiliated colleges.

When Web services are as cheap as Rs. 1000/year or even free, what stops these professors from maintaining Web pages? Or is there a fear of getting caught at work here?

(2) If you browse the Web pages/CVs of PhD students abroad, you will notice that many of them come to boast of numerous Invited Talks delivered right before their graduation. These invited talks are counted separate from (i.e. in addition to) their conference presentations. In contrast, in India, even Assistant/Associate Professors employed at IITs might find it hard to get invited—only the top handful professors would be.

In India, an Invited Talk mainly serves as a status symbol, not as a means for having a good scientific interaction—a serious kind of fun! The culture of informal interactions in the form of seminars, workshops, invited talks is almost non-existent in India. Science is a matter of duty here, not of personal interest or ambition.

It seems easy enough for people here (in India) to explicitly note, if not outright complain, that they don’t understand someone else’s research—e.g., mine. However, strangely enough, this observation does not translate into a very simple action: Invite that guy over for a couple of invited talk (or a half-day seminar) on his topic.

The usual scapegoat: Lack of Funds, is not the real issue here, apathy is. That, or even worse human motivations.

I mean, I just can’t understand what stopped these folks from PRL or TIFR (or Narlikar’s own IUCAA) from asking a PhD student (say, from a nearby institution; say, from COEP’s Mechanical Department during 2004–2007; say, me) to go over their place and deliver a lecture or two on a topic from his research work which they claim they don’t understand? What stops (or stopped) them from doing something as simple as that?

And, what kind of a budget do you think is involved here? Not even Rs. 5000/- ($100/-) it it’s between Delhi and Bombay (or between Bangalore and Pune); or Rs. 1000/- ($20/-) if it’s between Bombay and Pune; or Rs. 200/- (\$4/-) if it’s within the Pune city itself. All these institutions avail of enough funds from UGC (the same body that funds research on astrology), DST, DoD, and all other bodies—typically, they have lakhs or even millions of Rupees earmarked for their visitor programs. And, even more funds would be available upon asking. (For instance, in case you didn’t know, under a scheme that DST runs, any MTech guy can easily avail of one million Rupees for any reasonable project work, even if he is not employed with a public-sector organization—all that they ask is that he has to be be an Indian citizen with enough qualifications and experience, and that he should arrange for supervision from some public sector laboratory or so, for monitoring purposes. And I directly or indirectly know of people who have availed of funding under this scheme, with funds being sanctioned within a year or so.)

I am not advocating public sector R & D. Not at all. All that I am saying is: Obviously, funding is not at all an obstacle when it comes to invite a PhD student at an institution like TIFR or IIT Bombay or IUCAA etc.

Yet, these same stupids—those who cannot conceive or bear with the thought of inviting a mere PhD student over—hardly spare any opportunity to criticize politicians or bureaucrats, (or anyone else who falls outside of their small, narrow clique of scientists). Stupids! [And I delete a whole train of worse words here—not because this is supposed to be a kid-sister-friendly blog, but because one realizes that these sort of assholes are not even worth spitting at—that’s why!!]

That is the sort of culture you have of doing science, of higher education, in India, as of today! And, here, I was talking of only the science and engineering departments here, not humanities, where it’s obvious that the matters can only be worse!!

Hopefully, when foreign universities arrive, something as inexpensive (and as simple) as this aspect—inviting PhD students and junior researchers for talks on their research—would undergo a change!

– – – – –

A Few Songs I Like

Note: You must have noticed that I hardly list Western music here, in the section “Songs I Like”. The reason is personal. It so happens that for the most part of my early life, I hardly, if ever, had listened to any Western musical sounds at all—not even pop or rock English songs. I grew up in rural areas of Maharashtra, many different towns, and in none of the towns would anyone ever play any kind of Western music. When we relocated to Nasik during my 10th standard, I was overjoyed because, finally, I could call a “city” my hometown. My working criterion for a city (as against towns), back then, was that it had to have traffic signals. Nasik city had just come to have one traffic signal, at the CBS square, back then. So, it was a city. … To cut a long story short, I developed “tastes” for both beer and English songs almost simultaneously, once I went to COEP. (Beer came first.) Yet, for reasons I don’t quite understand, though I do like quite a few English songs/Western tracks, I still find myself hesitating a bit when it comes to calling them as the songs I like. I mean, I like these English songs, sometimes even in a deep way, but even that liking seems to belong to a somewhat different category. I appreciate it, even deeply, but in a different mode as it were. … Anyway, just note for the time being that there is a little difference here between those Marathi and Hindi songs I like on the one hand and the Western/English tracks/songs I like on the other… (And since this note has grown big enough to qualify to be a post, I will post it as a separate post in its own right, later on!!)

Ok. Here we go with a few songs I like, this time round, from Western/English side…

1. to 3. Most of the tracks of the movie “Flashdance,” though, of course, among them, it is the instrumental theme track which is the most favorite of mine, followed by certain others [to be looked up and filled in later on, say, within a day or two]. Update on March 28, 2010: Say, these songs (in no particular order): “What a feelin…” and “Manhunt.”

BTW, the order of listing songs isn’t at all significant in this blog even otherwise.

# My QM-Related Research, and Physicists…

Over past many years, I have contacted many physicists concerning my QM research—whether to sound out my nascent ideas, or to invite informal criticism from them, or to seek their help with theory, literature, library access, or concerning how their (physicists’) community thinks/approaches research such as what I was doing. Given below is a list of the people together with a brief indication of my experience of them.

My QM Research and Physicists: Part I

(Note: I have tried to keep entries in this part (only) in the chronological order.)

— Dr. Naresh Dadhich, formerly, Professor and Director, IUCAA, Pune, India. He listened, for about 30-45 minutes, my proposed PhD research in general, back in 2003. He also allowed library access to IUCAA. Indeed, though I never have told him so, it was in these discussions that I had sensed that there seemed to be something wrong about the very idea of obliquity factor—it seemed so much at odds the way I was thinking, and presenting my ideas to him.

— Dr. Ajoy Ghatak, formerly Professor, Dept of Physics, IIT Delhi, India. I contacted him in 2005, seeking to sound out whether my thoughts on obliquity factor and QM had any obvious flaws. I had sent him an informal document noting down my thoughts/reasoning. In his first email reply, he indicated that I could meet him when he visits Mumbai for a Workshop on QM, for physics teachers, in which he was going to teach. Given my other experiences, this was a very big surprise for me. However, right in the second email, he told me that it was not necessary for me to see him. Yet, it must be noted that he continues to reply my emails—without discussing QM.

— Dr. Akira Tonomura, Hitachi, Japan. In 2005, he immediately replied my email permitting me to use his video for my conference presentation. However, understandably, as an experimentalist himself, he declined to comment on its theoretical content when I sent the paper itself after its publication.

— Dr. D. G. Kanhere, formerly, Professor, Dept of Physics, University of Pune, India. I attended the very first batch of the Diploma in Modeling and Simulation which he had started (2005). I did not complete the program because I got busy soon later on with my PhD research. But even after I had left the program, upon my subsequent request in late 2006, he had indicated the willingness to let me browse e-Journals, and recently allowed me to attend an international workshop. However, he thought that he was not suitable to discuss my research with him, Dr. Panat was. (Unfortunately, Dr. Panat passed away before I could get manage to meet him.)

— Dr. James B. Anderson, Professor, Dept of Chemistry, Penn State, USA. I contacted him once by email in 2009, with query as to whether there was any precedence to modeling the Schrodinger equation using MC techniques in real space and real time. He immediately replied back. He did not provide a direct answer to the question, but instead referred me to his compilation of research papers. (I have touched on this in a previous post, here.)

My QM Research and Physicists: Part II

— Dr. Frank Wilczek, Professor, Physics, MIT, USA. The University of Pune officially approached him (on my suggestion to my guide which he forwarded through the further official channels) requesting him to examine my thesis. He declined, citing a lack of time. Apparently, he did not have even the time to go through a one page abstract which had explicitly noted the resolution of the wave-particle duality as well as conceptual mathematical results first in 200 years.

— Dr. Harvey Gould, Professor, Physics, Clark University, USA. UoP approached him officially (as noted above). He declined it, officially citing a lack of competence to judge the thesis—a mere PhD thesis. (Apparently, he read through the one-page and the ten-pages abstracts of my thesis.)

— Dr. Eric Heller, Professor, Dept. of Physics, Harvard University, USA. UoP approached also him officially (as noted above). He, too, declined the request, citing a lack of competence to judge the thesis—a mere PhD thesis. (Thus, apparently, he, too, read through the one-page and the ten-pages abstracts of the thesis.)

— Dr. Brian Josephson, Professor, Physics, Cambridge University, UK. I had written him an email indicating my admiration for his willingness to back up controversial ideas in general. Then, I had indicated my QM research to him (after the publication of the papers) and sought to have a correspondence with him. Perhaps naturally, he did not reply at all. Not even that usual one line thank you note people write back when someone indicates admiration. I am sure he is duly impressed by India’s deep, rich etc. cultural heritage etc. (LOL!)

— Dr. Jayant Narlikar, formerly, Professor and Director, IUCAA, Pune, India. In 2003, he declined my request (paper-based, left with his assistant) to discuss my nascent research ideas with him. (I decided to see him following a public Workshop in astronomy that he and his colleagues had conducted in the Fergusson College, Pune. They were all high on the spirit of science, of free enquiry, of the vital importance of curiosity etc., as usual.) However, he did allow a limited time library access to IUCAA. Later on, he exchanged one email after the publication of my QM paper, but did not at all touch upon my research or the dramatic nature of the claimed findings—i.e., no curiosity shown.

— Dr. Virendra Singh, formerly, Professor of Physics and Director, TIFR, Mumbai, India. After coming across an article by him on QM in Current Science or Resonance or so, I wrote him an email, indicating my eagerness to discuss my research with him. I don’t quite remember when precisely this was, but I believe it was after the submission of my thesis. (Certainly, after the publication of my papers.) Of course, as is so typical of TIFR (and every other Indian personality and institute adored abroad), I never received any reply from him.

— Dr. Narendra Karmarkar, formerly, Professor, TIFR (?—in UoP campus), Pune, India. I was not keen on meeting him, anticipating him to be a typical TIFR/Indian-researcher-adored-by-American/foreign-researchers sort of a personality. But I ran into one of his class-mates from their secondary-school days, and it was this gentleman (himself a PhD) who convinced me that I must see him at least once. For once I decided to give in to this well-wisher, and so, took appointment from his secretary. However, Karmarkar was not available on the appointed time. So, I left with his secretary the paper copies of my published papers on QM, and my resume, including my interest in seeking to develop the algorithmic aspects of my research. My judgment of the human nature proved superior to my well-wisher’s, and Karmarkar never called/emailed me. This was, I guess, in 2006. In 2009, I was to discover that some of these ideas had been covered by another IIT Bombay alumnus, the US-settled Sachin Saptnekar and his PhD student. (The e-Journal access was not available at COEP during the entire period when I did my PhD. So, all my literature search was done visiting my friends in IITs, or requesting other people with as much sweetness as was necessary. Some people (like Thanu Padmanabhan) never fell to the game; see his entry below. Anyway, the point here is that I could have gotten Saptnekar’s research earlier if my searches were not squeezed in between those of the other PhD students of my friends at IITs, at most 3–4 hours/day, at most 2 days per three-four months or so.) … Anyway, talking about Saptnekar et al’s research is now more or less completely pointless out of two reasons: Dr. Tarun Kant and his colleagues at  IIT Bombay have shot down (rejected) my proposed paper at his ICCMS conference in 2009 out of the flimsy pretext that I used the first person in the abstract. Doing cutting-edge research is a moving target these days. The remaining viability for my ideas, to be pursued in early 2010, were killed down by D. W. Pande, QIP PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay while on deputation from the Government College of Engineering Aurangabad (of the famous Vilasrao Deshmukh and Ashok Chavan) and currently, The Head of the Department, The Department of Mechanical (not Metallurgy) Engineering, College of Engineering, Pune, together with GB Pant (Member, BoG, COEP) and Dr. Anil D. Sahasrabuddhe (Director, COEP, on deputation from, ahem, IIT Guwahati). So, all in all, the story which began with someone who had attended secondary school in Pune with Karmarkar thus comes to an end with the “Rushitulya”s at COEP shooting down my research.

– Dr. Dipankar Home, Professor, Physics, The Bose Institute, Kolkata, India. He has been mentioned in Gibbin’s popular science books [Schrodinger’s Cat; …Kitten]. Exhausted with the University of Pune delays in appointing examiners, to cut the process short, I directly wrote him an email (with a cc to my guide) requesting him to examine my thesis. No communication at all (then and now).

— Dr. S. H. Patil, Professor, Physics, IIT Bombay, India. I approached him through a friend, requesting him to either accept examining my Ph.D. thesis or suggest someone else suitable. He read through only the one-page abstract, and turned down both the requests, apparently assigning no reason/explanation at all.

— Dr. Rohini Godbole, Professor and Head, Center for High Energy Physics, IISc, Bangalore, India. I included her name in the suggested list of examiners after reading her article in a Marathi “Diwali ank” i.e. special annual issues touching on cultural and literary matters, published at the time of the Diwali festival, in Maharashtra (but not yet in Delhi, UP, etc.) (I gathered that she had attended the Huzurpaagaa school or so in Pune.) Since the UoP was going at the snail’s pace in contacting potential examiners—and wouldn’t contact anyone by email—my guide contacted her by email, attaching the one and ten pages abstracts. No reply at all was received even by the guide from her, I gathered later on.

— Dr. R. Vijaya, Professor, Physics, IIT Bombay, India. The UoP approached her officially, as written above for others, asking her if she could examine my thesis. She declined, citing a lack of competence for judging the thesis—a mere PhD thesis. (Apparently, she read through the one-page and the ten-pages abstracts of my thesis.)

— Dr. Anu Venugopalan, Reader, Physics, Indraprastha University, India. She has enjoyed a fellowship at a Delhi-based organization focusing on foundational issues in QM. I pointed out my research papers to her via an email (after their publication), and indicated an eagerness to discuss any aspects of the same, including the willingness to correct any of the results if found wrong. No reply whatsoever received till date.

— Dr. Sunil Mukhi, Professor, Dept. of Physics, TIFR, Mumbai, India. A few months ago, I wrote him an email touching on my reserach in such a way that it couldn’t have escaped by anyone like him. Of course, no reply has been received thus far.

— Dr. Shobhana Narasimhan, Professor, Physics/Computational Materials Science, JNCASR, India. UoP approached similarly. She officially declined it, citing a lack of competence to judge the PhD thesis. Addendum: Recently I met her at a conference and found her easily approachable; however, I did not bring the unpleasant topic up.

— Dr. Umesh Waghmare, Professor, Physics/Computational Materials Science, JNCASR, Bangalore, India. Exhausted with the university delays, to cut the process short, I directly wrote him an email (with a cc to my guide), requesting him to examine my thesis. No communication at all (back then). (Recently, I ran into him in a conference and he remembered that email, but still, we could talk—more on this, in a later post.)

— Dr. Lewis Little, Independent researcher and originator of the Elementary Waves theory of QM. I have sent him an email, informing him of my development, but received no reply at all.

My QM Research and Physicists: Part III

— Dr. Thanu Padmanabhan, Professor and Dean (Core Academic Programs), IUCAA, Pune, India. I approached him after the publication of my papers, wishing to discuss them, to get to know what he thought of the ideas, and to seek permission to use libraries. He lied to me saying that he did not at all know QM, not even the elementary/basic wave-particle duality part of it. Unlike Dadhich and Narlikar, he did not immediately permit me to use the library but instead suggested a bureaucratic turn-about way to do so. When I fulfilled the requirements, he still did not act on it.

— Dr. A. D. Angal, Professor, Dept. of Physics, University of Pune, India. Exhausted with the university delays, to cut the process short, I directly met him to ask if he could be my PhD examiner, and if not, if he could please suggest someone else suitable. In the personal meeting in his cabin, he questioned whether any PhD could at all be granted for a thesis like mine—he meant that it was too broad of scope and not focussed enough (to be of proper research). When I pointed out that the obliquity factor observation or the wave-particle duality resolution couldn’t have been developed without being focused, he entirely dropped both the results out of the further discussion. When I still prodded him, he declared that the wave-particle duality was not a paradox at all so that there was nothing in it for one to resolve. When I asked why the University which employs him continues to teach the duality as a paradox to BSc and MSc students (right in his department), and why he doesn’t protest them, he (actually) did not take any offence (!) but, with a bit of hand-waving, indicated that he doesn’t run the entire University.

— ACAT 2010 Organizers (i.e. Researchers from/associated with CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, and those from the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, India)

Last year (2009), I submitted an abstract for a proposed paper on a conference called ACAT 2010 (currently in progress). The paper was rejected.

The details of my papers are given below:

Quote
Title: Computer Simulation of Afshar’s “Welcher-Weg” Experiment, using a New Approach Called “FAQ”

Abstract: I have developed a completely new theoretical approach called “FAQ” (short for fields as quanta). It  has allowed a resolution of the paradox of the quantum-mechanical wave-particle duality in the particular case of light[1]. This new approach[2] is conceptually very simple; it does not offend either the common-sense or certain basic physical considerations such as symmetry.

The FAQ approach was used earlier for computational modeling of the single-photon double-slit interference experiment[1]. It is now being used here for computer simulations of certain ideas central to Afshar’s “welcher weg” experiment[4,5]. The physical referents corresponding to certain controversial quantum-mechanical ideas[5–10] are briefly pointed out. On this basis, both Bohr’s idea of the Complementarity principle as well as Afshar’s position concerning it might be refuted. However, the main emphasis of this paper remains on using computational simulations as a vehicle to conveniently express our novel physical ideas.

References:

[1] Jadhav, A. R., & Kajale, S. R. (2005) “Resolution of the wave-particle duality of light using a new approach, parts I and II.” In e-Proc. of the 50th Congress of the Indian Society of Theoetical and Applied Mechanics (an International Meet), held during December 14–17, 2005 at IIT Kharagpur, India
[2] Jadhav, A. R. (2007) “A New Approach to Computer Modeling and Analysis of Certain Fundamental Field Problems from Engineering Sciences.” Ph.D. thesis, COEP, University of Pune, India. (Defended in 2009.)
[3] Afshar, S. S. (2005) “Violation of the principle of Complementarity, and its implications.” Proc. SPIE, vol. 5866, pp. 229–244. doi: 10.1117/12.638774 arXiv:quant-ph/0701027
[4] Afshar, S. S., Flores, E., McDonald, K. F., & Knoesel, E. (2007) “Paradox in wave-particle duality.” Found. Phys., vol. 37, pp. 295. arXiv:quant-ph/0702188v1
[5] Drezet, A. (2005) “Complementarity and Afshar’s experiment.” arXiv:quant-ph/0508091v3
[6] Steuernagel, O. (2005) “Afshar’s experiment does not show a violation of complementarity.” arXiv:quant-ph/0512123v2
[7] Quershi, T. (2007) “Complementarity and the Afshar experiment.” arXiv:quant-ph/0701109v2
[8] Reitzner, D. (2007) “Comment on Afshar’s experiment.” arXiv:quant-ph/0701152v1
[9] Srikanth, R. (2001) “Physical reality and the complementarity principle.” arXiv:quant-ph/0102009v2
[10] Rand, A. (1990) “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, second expanded edition ed. by Binswanger, H., & Peikoff, L.” Meridian, pp. 301–304
Unquote

You are welcome to have a look at the other papers that were accepted and are in the process of being presented in this CERN conference. The organizers did not bother even to so much as send an email informing of the rejection. The reason for rejection could very well be that a book by Ayn Rand was being referenced.

There are likely to be many more people that I have forgotten to write about, especially in Parts II and III above (e.g., people from IISc, TIFR and IITs).

In contrast, I would be very hard-pressed to find any additional people who I might have forgotten to include in the Part I. I mean forgetting is always a possibility with me, but chances are definitely slimmer when it comes to the Part I. BTW, also note: I have tried to keep entries in the Part I (only) in the chronological order in which I met these people. For the other two parts, I couldn’t care less. However, still, for the Part II, I have tried to keep the officially contacted or the more senior/reputed/adored names higher up, within that part.

– – – – –

A Music Track I Like

Theme Music of the Movie: “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”
Music: Ennio Morricone

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PS: [As usual] Minor editing and streamlining still remains TBD despite an update  on Feb 24, 2010.

# Food for Thought: A Few Recent arXiv Papers

arXiv

Before I wrote and published my preliminary QM papers in 2005 [^], I had done an extensive literature search, just to make sure that the sort of things that I was proposing had not already been published. arXiv.org came in especially handy because in physical sciences, it’s almost become a norm by now to dump one preprint over there even as the journal publication process continues.

In the past, I have written about how I used to be “followed up” in media, and also otherwise.  (…It still continues, but to a far lesser extent. It began lessening after the change of power at the Center (in India) in 2004, and esp. noticeably so, once the India-USA civilian nuclear deal went through.) But back in 2005 times and thereabouts, the “follow up” was still very much in force.

… Also, I had noticed a funny thing. The titles and contents of the submissions at arXiv would often seem to “talk” to each other. … I mean, if someone put a paper touching on an aether-based model, someone else just had to come and put his paper denying aether, and so on and so forth…

So, from around 2004 (roughly, my PhD registration) to about Oct 2009, I had made a habit of going over all the paper submissions in the “quant-ph” and “physics” categories at the arXiv.org.

I would go over each title, and if anything sounded related to my work by any stretch of imagination, I would make sure to go through the abstract and then, if necessary, also through the full paper. … As a rought estimate, I would go through the abstracts for about 25-30% of all the papers in the above two categories. Typically, I would end up downloading at least 25 papers each week, though most would be discarded. … I would do all of this just to be reasonably sure that my claims of novelty were meaningful, and of course, also to glean what other people were thinking on the same or related issues.

With my Ph.D. defense, I could sigh in relief… I mean I didn’t have that anxiety any more…

All in all, during this time—2004 through most of 2009—I spotted quite a few papers that were really interesting (to me). I would certainly like to share what these papers are, at some point in time. But it just so happens that all those downloads are now scattered in various directories and sub-directories on three separate HDDs of my home machines, and so, it’s going to be a big task by itself to collect all those interesting papers together… I definitely plan to do so one of these days but other things keep taking precedence.

Anyway, so… even if the defense is now over, I still have this habit of visiting arXiv every now and then (though I don’t go over each and every submission these days).

A Couple of Recent Articles

Last week or so, I found two interesting articles that provide good food for thought, and would like to share these with you.

One of these is: Dragoljub A. Cucic,  “Types of paradox in physics,” arXiv:0912.1864v1 [^]. It’s a very comprehensive kind of article. Impressed, I did an author search on Cucic, and found a few more papers on this topic by him [^].

The other article I have in mind is: Franco Bagnoli, “From Newton to cellular automata,” arXiv:0912.2056v1 [^]. Again, the scope of this article is just wonderfully wide, even though the writing tends to be a bit too terse at places. But Bagnoli compensates for this by including a neat “concept map.”

Both the papers are easily accessible even to undergraduates. Both provide enormous food for thought.

Indeed, I already find myself wondering if I should write an article or two addressing one or two of the many paradoxes that Cucic lists.

And, I cannot thank Bagnoli enough for providing a kind of “white paper” material that was so badly needed in explaining to other researchers (not just to laymen) just what kind of research ideas and methods I seem to be pursuing and how these differ from those in the typical PhD researches, esp. those from the engineering sciences. It helps explain why there is this  general (and pretty vague) impression to the effect that there is not enough “maths” or “rigour” in my research or in my papers… Bagnoli helps point out the why of it…

I might even write an informal article showing what kind of maths it will look like if an artificial attempt is made to mathematicize these ideas at any cost, using only the classical or traditional way of putting maths… [I would write such an article anyway but especially so if some renowned scientist/mathematician has problems accepting my research otherwise and so asks me to do so [as I had indicated in my last post (just below).]

Anyway, do go over these articles, and if you wish to share a comment or two, feel free to write.  [I also plan to start a thread at iMechanica for discussing these papers.]

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Two Songs I Like [more or less at random]

1. (Hindi) “hawaon pe likh do, hawaon ke naam…”
Singer: Kishore Kumar
Lyrics: Gulzar
Music: Hemant Kumar

2. (Marathi) “maanasichaa chitrakaar to…”
Singer: Hridaynath Mangeshkar
Music: Vasant Prabhu (?)
Lyrics: P. Savalaram (?)

# My Ph.D. Defence

My Ph.D. Defence

I am pleased to inform you that I will be defending my Ph.D. thesis, formally in mechanical engineering, at COEP, University of Pune, India, on the next Sunday (i.e. 20th September, 2009).

The title of my thesis is: “A New Approach to Computer Modeling and Analysis of Certain Fundamental Field Problems from Engineering Sciences.”

I am attaching the 10 (actually 13) pages long abstract of my thesis for your information [Ajit R Jadhav – Ten Pages Abstract of the PhD Thesis]. The thesis is based on my published articles which may be downloaded from my Web site [here].

If you would like to formally raise some questions on any part of my thesis, to be included during the official defence proceedings, then please leave a message and I will then let you know the email address of the Defence Committee Chairman. You could then submit your questions in complete confidence directly to the Chairman. This being the Internet, I would request you to kindly include your verification information such as your name and affiliation in your message. If this information is not completely available, I may not be able to approve or respond to your messages. I will check messages until Saturday morning (India time).

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Three Songs I Like

1. (Marathi) “peek_ karapal_ pakshee door deshi gel_…”
Lyrics: “naa. dho. mahanor”
Singer: “ravindra saaThe”
Music: “hrudaynaath mangeshkar”

2. (Hindi) “khushi do ghaDi ki, mile, naa mile…”
Singer: Kishore Kumar
Music: Kishore Kumar

3. (Hindi): “kaahe ko roye…”
Lyrics: Anand Bakshi
Singer: S. D. Burman
Music: S. D. Burman

# Does QMC Have Priority over FAQ? + Miscellanea

One of my recent muses is the title question of this post. … Allow me to explain.

As I have pointed out a few times in the past in this blog and also elsewhere, I have discovered a way to resolve the quantum wave-particle paradox. See my slides and papers here. Soon later on, I began calling the new approach by the name “FAQ,” which is short for: fields as quanta. That is what the “FAQ” in the title of this post refers to.

Before making my claim, of course, I had done an extensive literature search, almost none of which was cited in the abovementioned papers, simply out of the space limitations of a conference paper. But the search was there. One of the things I had quickly browsed through, during this search, was the literature on QMC—short for Quantum Monte Carlo.

In recent weeks, I decided to search once again. It must have been the n-th occasion that I was searching thus. This time round, I was reading more closely the papers, and so ran into some interesting passages in a few early papers (circa 1975) by Professor James B. Anderson of Penn State (USA). In some of these papers, Professor Anderson indicates that Metropolis, Ulam and John von Neumann had stated in one of their early papers (in late 1940s) that the idea for something like QMC had already occurred to the great physicist and Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi.

Curious, I immediately wrote him an email, and promptly received the directions to look up his new book: “Quantum Monte Carlo: Origins, Developments and Applications”. The relevant pages of this book can be browsed at Google books [here]. This book is a researcher’s dream come true. Original papers tracing the development are hand selected, and brief introductions to each provided. (These introductions written with expertise and yet remain accessible to a “lay reader” like me.)

It’s enough to browse the first few pages of Anderson’s book to realize that Schrodinger himself was right up there, thinking about these ideas (and also publishing them in journal papers) right in 1935.

Thus, QMC has… what’s the word here? precedents? antecedents? … Whatever. I will use the term “precedents” here. So, QMC  has two independent lines of precedents, both traceable to famous people (Nobel laureates), one going as far back as to 1935, to Schrodinger himself. The other line goes back to late 1930s and early 1940s to Fermi. (I forgot my tracks on the Internet or in the books/papers here, but will add links to them later on.)

Very deeply interesting, this all is. Also, even satisfying in a way!

However, all my reading of all such material tells me that all the precedents to the modeling of Schrodinger’s Equation (SE) using ideas such as random walks or Monte Carlo involve the imaginary time—not the real time. (Refer to Anderson’s excellent book and papers to know what this means.)

My approach, in contrast, involves the real time (and the real space—not a configuration space).

It might seem amazing that Einstein worked on both the photoelectric effect and the Brownian motion in the same year 1905, and yet didn’t think of extending the second to explain the first. Even more amazing is the fact that both Schrodinger and Fermi thought of using the second to model quanta, but never thought of doing so in the real time.

It is for these reasons that I conclude that QMC cannot be said to have the priority over FAQ. In other words, my claims are valid.

This post is to bring the matter to your careful and serious attention. If you have any [proper] evidence contrary to my conclusion/claim, then kindly do drop me a line or provide the links.

[BTW, note, links like this may be good otherwise, but are not detailed enough to be of help in this matter.]

– – – – –

A few clarifications/asides:

I am not at all interested in any sort of a priority battle. But one likes to be as direct as is possible in communications. The purposes this policy serves are things such as: precision and economy in thought; propriety in the allocation of intellectual credit where one is due.

Interestingly, after submitting an abstract to an upcoming international conferences in India, the reviewing committee noted to the effect that “direct claims” such as what I was making could not be entertained.

To say that I was surprised would be an understatement. It was nothing less than shocking. … Of course one is supposed to be as direct as possible in all communications of this kind. Indirectness might have its allure in poetry, esp. of the romantic sort. Consider here the beauty of: <Hindi>”Kyaa Kehnaa Hai, Kyaa Sunanaa Hai…”</Hindi> … You know what I mean—literally…. But trying to use it in science/research? (LOL!)

So, one tries to be direct. And, one remains open and available (i.e. active-minded) to correct oneself—if a correction is necessary. It is in this spirit that I make all my claims. After a conscientious and as wide a literature search as possible. But directly, as directly as possible, thereafter. … Sigh… Not all folks in India know or understand or support this way of approaching science!

Anyway, to return to more interesting matters than them (and their science/engineering), let me know if I am understanding QMC in a wrong way and/or making a wrong claim somewhere in my research. I would appreciate being kept corrected—if one is necessary.

– – – – –

And, while quoting Javed Saheb’s poetry (which also is a song), it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to start jotting down a few songs that I like after every post I make. (This idea traces its origins to Jean Moroney Binswanger’s advice [here] to everyday jot down three good things—major or minor—that happened to you on that day…. Well, three per day is too much, but three per post isn’t a bad idea to implement).

Accordingly, here I begin, right away. Three poems/songs/tunes/musical compositions I like (of whatever type/genre, for whatever reasons, from whatever language I know, etc., more or less at random, out of hundreds of such):

1. <Hindi>ye raate ye mausam nadi kaa kinaaraa…</Hindi> (Kishore Kumar)
2. <Marathi>jan paL bhar mhaNatil haay haay…</Marathi> (Lata, Bhaa. Raa. Taambe.)
3. (Words not necessarily exact)<Hindi>chhaayee barakhaa bahaar, kare jiyaraa pukaar</Hindi> (Lata)

An important note about the third song: As far as I can make out, (and I am confident about it), this song is in the “raag” “bhairavee.” The reason I am so confident is because I once heard an unforgettable “jugalbandi” of Pandit Bismilla Khan on “shehnai” and Mrs. Rajam on violin in “bharavee”. It was an especially memorable performance because it was the first time ever that I had really appreciated a piece of the Indian classical music. (As a rule, I find it boring—but always with notable exceptions. (Also Western classical—most of it, too, is boring.)) They had announced the “raag” at that time, it was “bhairavee.” I had observed, right then, that this song of Lata (which I quote above) was exactly like that “raag” and vice versa.  (The venue was the Open Air Theatre of IIT Madras, when I was a master’s student there at that time.)… The reason to share this all side information is to emphasize doubly and triply that the song I have in mind here is not the “aayi barkhaa bahaar…” by Lata and Madan Mohan. Neither is it any of the other “aayi barkhaa bahaars…” that are listed on Google within the first 30 pages. And of course, it is not that Salil Choudhary’s unforgettable “o sajanaa, barakhaa bahaar aayee” (which is not in “bhairavee” anyway.)

… Yes, the song I have in mind is for real. It exists. But I don’t recall any of its other credits (like the film, the lyricist, the music director, etc.) except for the fact that it’s been sung by Lata and that it is in “bhairavee.” (And yes, at least one member of our family could distinctly remember that there is such a song (despite the fact that I am not a good singer), though they too can’t recall its film etc. … Please do let me know if you find it.